


A History to Keep Us Warm

by afrakaday



Category: Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica (2003), Deadwood
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrakaday/pseuds/afrakaday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Springtime brings material memories to the Adamas' cabin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A History to Keep Us Warm

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [New in Town](https://archiveofourown.org/works/390118) by [fragrantwoods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragrantwoods/pseuds/fragrantwoods). 



Laura tucked the bottle of amber-colored viscous liquid into her bag of fabric remnants and sewing implements, straightened her bonnet, and proceeded to the parlor. Bill, seated at the table bent over a notebook, looked up at her briefly, then back down as he resumed his brisk scribbling.

“I’ll see you in a little while, honey,” Laura said, leaning close to kiss his stubbled cheek.

Bill stopped writing and frowned. “Quilting circle again?”

“Only one this week, I promise,” Laura said with an affected shudder. She grinned and ran her fingers through his thick hair. “Then I’m all yours.”

“It must be time for you to host again soon,” he said with an inquiring look. Quilting circle sometimes involved an auxiliary meeting of the menfolk, particularly when hosted at the Adamas’ house.

She shrugged. “Ellen likes having it at her place so she can have us try out her inventions.” _And this particular project needed to be assembled far from Bill’s curious eyes._

“What are you ladies working on now?” The group tended to work collaboratively on one project at a time, usually for someone in either the group or the community. The most recent finished project had gone to Kara and Leland, _nee_ Lee’s, newborn daughter. The star design was a traditional one, the pattern having been provided to the group by Martha, but Kara and Leland had looked at it and smiled at the knowledge that it referred to something less abstract than the pointed patches of calico before swaddling it around their baby girl.

The current work in progress recalled more explicitly their unusual heritage. Thus, although both Alma-- _Mrs. Swearingen_ Laura reminded herself-- and her daughter Sofia frequently participated in the Falcon’s Rest quilting circle, the subject of this latest project necessitated the exclusion of their Deadwood neighbors, superior quilting knowledge and all. The group's abilities had improved to the point that they were ready to attempt more elaborate projects, and by consensus had decided that the former leaders should get the first full-sized custom quilt.

“It’s a surprise,” Laura said with exaggerated nonchalance.

He gave her bottom a gentle squeeze as she moved to leave. “Hurry back, love.”

Laura smiled indulgently. “I always do.”

His pencil was set in motion again over the paper before Laura closed the front door to their house.

 

* * *

 

Kara’s hearty laugh competed for supremacy with her daughter’s lusty wail over the din of the crowded room. Laura had just finished describing their agent’s most recent missive in response to the manuscript she and Bill had recently sent him, lauding it as “surprisingly realistic and endlessly entertaining...the character of Starbuck is sure to join the likes of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in the annals of mischievous American literary giants.”

“What the frak is Huckleberry Finn?” Kara sputtered, bouncing Amelia up and down in an attempt to calm the squawking six-month-old. Her corner of quilt sat forgotten, Viper applique still full of pins where others’ sections had become smooth-stitched baffling.

Sharon Agathon leaned over Hera’s curly head, inspecting her daughter’s handiwork along the inner border. “Good stitching, baby.” Sharon looked up at Kara and added, more for Laura’s benefit than Kara’s, “I don’t think the comparison is very apt, Kara. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are juvenile delinquents.”

“Hmm.” Kara sat back down and bit her lip, thinking. “That may not be far off,” she finally admitted. “Don’t hold it against me,” she whispered to her daughter.

Laura gasped involuntarily as her needle made its way into the pad of her thumb yet again. “ _Frak_. Ellen!” she called. “I think I’m ready to try out your contraption.” She dipped the wounded digit into her tumbler of whiskey and sucked. “And bring that bottle back in here, if you don’t mind.”

Ellen didn’t respond until she finished the section she was working on, across from Laura. “Yes, Madam President,” she smirked. “I think I’ve got just the thing...”

Ten minutes later Laura was sweating with effort, but her fingertips were intact and her section of the quilt nearly complete. “Gods, Ellen, I really think you’re onto something with this.”

The mechanized needle made a light thud each time it pricked at the fabric, the up-and-down motion powered by a small foot pedal underneath the table. Ellen sipped at her drink and watched Laura work with, and sometimes against, the prototype.

“Looks good,” Ellen said. “Are you finding it fairly easy to use?”

“I wouldn’t quite say easy,” Laura responded before returning to her concentrated expression, tongue between her teeth as she directed the needle/bobbin combination around the edge of a dark fabric patch. “But it is certainly faster than doing everything by hand.”

“I don’t know, Madam Prez,” cut in Kara. “Don’t you think there’s something... more authentic about doing it the way they showed us?”

“That was fine for when we were making Amelia’s quilt, but this one is much bigger,” Laura pointed out. “I’ll happily cop to having used Ellen’s--thing, here.” She looked over at Ellen. “What are you calling this thing, anyway?”

“Hand-held sewing machine,” Ellen said promptly. “I made it particularly for quilting.”

“I wanna try!” Hera said, grinning impishly.

“It’s up to your mom,” Laura told her, snipping off some threads and setting the prototype down on top of a section of fabric cut out in the shape of the Tauron flag. “And no trying it out on the quilt. Use some scraps first.”

Sharon nodded, and Ellen got Hera set up with the prototype at a smaller table in the corner of the room. “Very good, sweetie. You’re much better at this than Laura.”

“Hmph,” Laura said.

“Don’t take it personally,” Kara advised. “The quilt looks great.”

Laura had to admit that it did. Bill was going to love it, she thought with certainty as she surveyed the group’s handiwork. It was nearly completed, just in time to take it up to their cabin for the spring. The harsh winter snows had made the trip up there impossible, and now that they had melted, Laura couldn’t wait to spend their evenings in the big bed under the skylight, inspired by each other and the stars. “I think I just need to finish reinforcing a few sections, and it’ll be done.”

“Yep,” Sharon agreed. “Libran, Scorpia, and Picon are all finished over here.”

“My colonies are quilted, too,” Ellen said, looking up from where she was supervising Hera.

“Yeah, that just leaves me,” Kara said, lifting up and frowning at a flap of fabric that needed to be sewed. “Hey, it’s hard to do this with a baby in your lap.”

Laura tucked her packet of pins and needles away into her bag and stood, making her way over to Kara’s spot across the table and plucking the baby from the crook of her arm. “Then I will just have to hold her for you.” Amelia gurgled happily at her grandmother, and Kara smiled before returning to her sewing.

A creak of the door, followed by its slam into the frame, announced the arrival of latecomers. “Anyone home?” bellowed the unmistakable voice of Saul Tigh.

Laura walked toward the front of the house and intercepted him. “Bill!” she said in surprise when she saw her husband trailing his friend. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed a break from writing, so I went into town for a drink,” he explained. “I found Saul coming out of the hardware store, told him I’d help him carry his things back home.” He leaned down to drop a kiss on Amelia’s forehead, then brought his lips to Laura’s. “How are my best girls doing?”

“Fine, just fine,” Laura said brightly, moving to block the men’s progress toward the back room. “Actually, if you would give us just a moment...”

Saul looked at Bill and shrugged, and Laura turned on her heel and fled to the quilters. “Turn it over!” she hissed quietly at Sharon and Kara. “Bill’s here. He can’t see!”

“Aw, I was almost done this section, too,” Kara grumbled.

She and Sharon got the new quilt folded in half, then in half again, just in time. “How’s it going, ladies?” Saul asked, coming to stand behind Ellen and put his hands on her shoulders.

“We’re finished for today,” Ellen said. “We tried out the handheld sewing machine, Saul. Even Laura was able work it--we might have a hit on our hands.”

“I like it,” piped in Hera, holding up the scraps she’d sewn together into a blob. Saul admired her work, nodding intently as she described her efforts to him.

Bill lifted Amelia out of Laura’s arms and sang softly to her when she began to fuss, calming her instantly. Laura took advantage of her husband’s besotted distraction to move the nearly completed quilt into the cedar armoire where the ladies stored their projects while they worked on them. Quilt concealed, she hastily gathered her things.

“Why don’t you come over the day after tomorrow and we’ll finish it up,” suggested Ellen in a low voice. “I’ll make sure Saul knows not to bring Bill around.”

“That would be great,” Laura said, flashing a grateful smile. “We’re planning on going up there at the end of the week, and I’d love for it to be ready by then.”

“Oh, it will be,” Ellen said, punctuating her promise with several pumps of the prototype’s pneumatic foot pedal.

Kara had collected her sewing bag and her baby, and walked over to join the older women. “So what’s the plan?”

“We need to get the quilt finished and in their cabin by the end of the week,” Ellen told her. “Can you come back on Wednesday to help us finish?”

Kara shook her head. “No, I’ve got deputy sheriff duty all day.”

“That’s fine, there’s not much more to do, anyway,” Laura assured her.

“I could probably take it up to your place once it’s finished, though,” Kara said thoughtfully. “I need to head up that way, check on the settlements way out there. Thursday?”

“I can watch her while you do that,” Laura offered, letting Amelia wrap her chubby fist around her finger. “We would love to have her over for a couple of hours.”

 

* * *

 

The following Friday, Laura could barely slow her pace enough for Bill to catch his breath as they ascended the increasingly worn path up and over the dusty plateau toward their cabin. In the two years since her miraculous recovery, Laura had found that Bill struggled to keep up with her more than vice versa--not that he ever complained. Still, when his tanned cheeks grew red with effort, she forced herself to slow down and enjoy the journey, rather than remain focused on thoughts of their destination.

"Nice to see the trees blooming again," he wheezed as he laced his fingers through her own. Small patches of icy snow still remained in a few shaded spots, but for the most part their path was marked with mud, rocks, and nascent green shoots heralding yet another beginning for them.

"Almost there," she said with a smile. He wrapped an arm around her waist as they trudged further upward and onward, and Laura said a silent prayer of thanks to Kara for coming up the previous day and getting the cabin all set up for them-- firewood for the stove, fresh water, provisions all. It would make it that much easier for them to kick off their shoes, and hopefully everything else, and fall into bed straightaway.

"I've missed coming up here," she whispered conspiratorially into his ear. Had it really only been a year ago that he'd brought her here, to their cabin by a stream that fed into a lake she’d only dreamed of since New Caprica, for the first time? It felt more like home than their house in town--but then, Bill had been home for her for years before they ever reached this particular terra firma due to that fortuitous Raptor jump gone awry.

Bill grunted in agreement and helped her over a puddle of melted snow.

 

The cabin seemed to be in good order as they made their way over the threshold, surprisingly unstuffy after months of disuse.

The huge bed still dominated the interior; this place wasn’t intended as much more than a place to get away from the people and responsibilities that still dogged them back in town.

Bill busied himself immediately with lighting a fire in the rough-hewn hearth, too distracted in his mission to even look at his wife as she began to take off her coat, boots, and stockings, draping articles of clothing over the split-log table that ran the length of the wide bedroom window.

“I swear, I should have brought up that manuscript to use for kindling,” Bill complained into the fireplace as he struck a match and struggled to light the pile of twigs he’d set up under some larger logs. “I really need you to take a look at the edits I’ve made, see what you think about the tone.”

Laura had efficiently unbuttoned her dress and perched on the edge of the bed, facing him in just her camisole. Her bare legs swung easily, lightheartedly, from the tall height of the bedframe and thick mattress Bill had acquired. Smoothing her hand over the bedspread, she admired the quilting circle’s handiwork. “Of course, honey.”

The fire finally caught, and he stepped back slightly to give it air. “You’re the only person who can make sense of what I’m trying--” he finally faced her and saw her sitting there, head tilted, waiting for him to finish his thought “--oh, frak.”

She smiled and beckoned him over. “I know.”

He stepped between her legs, hands on her bare shoulders as he looked behind her at the new bedclothes.

“This--”

“Is for us,” she finished. “What do you think?”

He gently tugged her off the edge of the bed and turned her around so he could draw her close to him while they both looked over the intricate quilt. “It’s amazing,” he said against her ear, his voice deep with emotion.

The binding was a sturdy navy canvas Laura had picked out at the mercantile for purely sentimental reasons due to its resembling the material of Bill’s old duty blues. Wide designs around the border held large squares with the Colonial designations for each of the Twelve Colonies, as well as squares containing the Colonial flag, a page from the Book of Pythia (the words embroidered by Sharon, who explained that she remembered them well and had the steady hand required for such fine work), the Arrow of Apollo, and the symbol ❦ used in the section breaks of their beloved _Searider Falcon_.

In the center of the quilt was a scene of a small cabin obviously set on a lake (the large expanse of aqua-blue material having been cut out and quilted by Kara). The dark-colored background indicated nighttime, and among the stars scattered in the sky sat both a flaming orange harvest moon and, smaller in proportion but no less important, the distinctive shape of a familiar hull flanked by extended flight pods.

“ _Galactica_ ,” he said quietly, pulling her into his lap as he sat at the corner of the bed and traced his fingers over the fabric facsimile of the Old Girl.

“I thought that might be your favorite part,” she said, leaning her cheek close against him and nuzzling the soft stubble there before brushing her lips against his.

“No,” he said with a fierceness that surprised her. “This is.” He patted his hand over the small solitary cabin.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to fragrantwoods for opening up her "New in Town" universe to others to play in. Falcon's Rest is her creation entirely.


End file.
